| Title |
Prenatal Fluoride Supplements Do Not Prevent Dental Caries In Offspring |
| Clinical Question |
Are prenatal fluoride supplements taken by pregnant women an effective means to prevent dental caries in their offspring? |
| Clinical Bottom Line |
There is no benefit of prenatal fluoride supplements taken by a pregnant woman in preventing dental caries to the child. (See Comments on the CAT below) |
| Best Evidence |
|
| PubMed ID |
Author / Year |
Patient Group |
Study type
(level of evidence) |
| 9165186 | Leverett/1997 | First time mothers and their infants | Randomized Clinical Trial | | Key results | 92% of children in the fluoride group remained caries-free to age 5 years compared to 91% in the placebo group. | |
| Evidence Search |
"fluoride supplements"[All Fields] AND "dental caries"[All Fields] AND "prenatal"[All Fields] |
Comments on
The Evidence |
1400 women participated and 1175 babies were born making up the actual study population. Compliance was 88% with very good compliance to protocol and a mean compliance score of .94 and .95 among the treatment group and control group. The study showed no significant difference between the study group and the control group with a confidence interval of 95%. Mild Fluorosis was observed in 26 subjects. Overall, there were no statistically significant differences in the study groups with respect to caries and fluorosis in deciduous teeth. It is notable that the study was done on low risk individuals and perhaps the results would not be indicative for high caries risk individuals. |
| Applicability |
As the treatment does not appear to be beneficial, it is not applicable to any patient group or clinical setting. |
| Specialty |
(Public Health) (General Dentistry) |
| Keywords |
|
| ID# |
627 |
| Date of submission |
05/03/2010 |
| E-mail |
royston@livemail.uthscsa.edu |
| Author |
Juli Royston |
| Co-author(s) |
|
| Co-author(s) e-mail |
|
| Faculty mentor |
Jane Steffensen, DDS |
| Faculty mentor e-mail |
STEFFENSEN@uthscsa.edu |
| |
|
Basic Science Rationale
(Mechanisms that may account for and/or explain the clinical question, i.e. is the answer to the clinical question consistent with basic biological, physical and/or behavioral science principles, laws and research?) |
| None available | |
 |
Comments and Evidence-Based Updates on the CAT
(FOR PRACTICING DENTISTS', FACULTY, RESIDENTS and/or STUDENTS COMMENTS ON PUBLISHED CATs) |
by Megan Laughinghouse, Calvin Tardy, Daniel Beruvides (San Antonio, TX) on 01/06/2014
We conducted a search on this topic in January 2014 and found a more recent publication by Sá Roriz Fonteles, 2005, PMID# 16251796 . This article further supports the conclusions of the CAT. | |